Full House: Manufacturer Colours Fleet Update

​It wasn’t too long ago that if you wanted to acquire manufacturer house colours models in 1:400 scale then your most likely avenue was the series of Dragon Wings examples, which usually utilized their poorer Airbus moulds. Things have certainly changed and in the past two years there has been an impressive array of new house colours releases. This has helpfully fed my appetite for collection expansion.

​I last wrote about my manufacturer house colours collection way back in March 2018. At the time I was just starting out in this area after I had expanded outside of my natural geographical collecting criteria. I rationalized this by saying it was a good way to easily compare aircraft types for visitors to the hangar. Obviously, that was only partly true but, as many of you no doubt are, I am excellent at justifying my collecting! 

For my first instalment about the house colours collection see:

Home Sweet Home: Manufacturer House Colours

​Anyway, in March 2018 I only had 17 models in the display case allocated to this new area of the collection, and one of those was an out of place BA Concorde. Times have certainly changed, fueled by a dizzying set of new releases from HYJLwings, JC Wings, NG Models, Panda Models and even Phoenix. Back in early 2018 NG Models were new to the scene and at the time I mentioned how hard they were to acquire. Thankfully that has changed since and NG Models are no harder to find than Phoenix or JC Wings, and a lot easier to get hold of than Panda Models.

​As is a common problem the growth of my house colours fleet has tested the capacity to fit them into the display case. As it is now there are only one or two available slots left and the BA Concorde has had to move out. The fleet now stands at 29 aircraft plus the Honeywell Industries test 757.

​It hasn’t been all new additions and I have been able to pick-up several models from the second-hand market to represent classic prototypes. The two most obvious additions here are the Dragon Wings Boeing 367-80 (effectively the 707 prototype even though a very different aircraft) and the Aeroclassics Douglas DC-8-51. These join the 747SR, DC-9-10, DC-10-30, MD-11 and Ilyushin IL-96. I am still keen to pick-up the prototype Boeing 727-100 (made by Aviation400) and the prototype Concorde (made by Dragon Wings) given the opportunity.

At the other end of the spectrum NG Models have provided a Comac C919 to go with the Panda Models ARJ21. It is Airbus that has expanded the most though. To go with the pair of Panda A320s there are now three HYJLwings A321s representing the A321-100, A321 neo and A321 LR. The arrival of these has allowed me to sell on the inferior Phoenix representation of the neo.

​On the widebody front the excellent Aviation400 A350-900 has been added alongside the equally great Panda Models A330-300 and recent JC Wings A330-900neo.

​Boeing has not been neglected. I acquired both of the NG house colours 757s, the flawed (but ok at distance) Phoenix 777-200 and most recently the JC Wings sunrise scheme 747-8i. Missing aircraft I’d like to be remade are a house colours 747-400 and 767-200, although I’m not sure how I’d fit them in.

​The glass cabinet is now almost full but has been moved to a new central location in the hangar space. This was partly to make room for a new table football table but also to make a central bookcase display, in which now resides many of my airliner magazine collections and some books.

​I’m really pleased with how this area of the collection has matured but do anticipate much slower growth here in the future, if only because space is at such a premium.